a Palestinian man walks next to a section of a wall eight-meters high built by the Israeli government, arbitrarily separating Jerusalem (and some additional annexed lands) from the Palestinian suburb of Abu Dis

We will not prevent terrorist acts by raising walls or bombing innocent strangers with sophisticated weaponry; by increasing the legal penalties for posession of a bomb; by spying on each other, high-tech or otherwise; by humiliating "the other;" by outlawing nail files or lighters; by putting an armed guard in every environment which has been a previous target; by incarcerating all the brown people on earth; by staying at home behind drawn curtains.

If we want to see it cease, we have to look to the cause of the terrorist response, not its manifestations. And it is a response; terrorism is always a response of the weak to the assaults of the powerful.

Terrorism feeds on imperialism. Neither of these is a state, merely a tactic; eliminate the imperialism and the threat from terrorism will disappear. We will never be made safe by building walls or by extending the power of our own state at home or abroad; the entire planet will survive and prosper if we recognize the appropriate limitations of that state and the proper proportion of our people, and placing both in the community of all nations and peoples.

[image from Newsday by Moises Saman]